


ring; /riNG/ a small circular band

by Anonymous



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, gilbert blythe character study, gilbert blythe has endured a lot of trauma, it has affected him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 12:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21391816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The stone was green. No, it was more than green. It was the glittering expanse of Prince Edward Island, the woods of Avonlea and the trees that reached up to the heavens. He vaguely recalled his father called it an emerald.or, Gilbert Blythe considers the peculiar green ring that once belonged to his mother
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 141
Collections: Anonymous





	ring; /riNG/ a small circular band

The stone was green. No, it was more than green. It was the glittering expanse of Prince Edward Island, the woods of Avonlea and the trees that reached up to the heavens. He vaguely recalled his father called it an emerald.

As a boy, the ring that once belonged to his mother sat in an undisturbed box beside his failing father's bedside. He would sometimes see him take the ring out and admire it, as if by touch alone he was being transported to another place and time.

Gilbert never asked about the ring. It was the only living part of his mother that remained in their quiet home as his siblings dwindled to none. It felt cruel to evoke the spirit of the ring and the woman that owned it in light of his father's despair over his dead wife. 

Yet, as he traveled Canada with his father in his final months, Gilbert began to ask questions about his mother. He knew his time with his father was on an ever-dwindling clock. However, Gilbert had memories of John Blythe to hold dear to his heart when his father was gone. He had nothing of his mother, save the peculiar green ring his father kept in that box. 

In his pain, Gilbert found the strength to ask.

Before he died, his father told Gilbert all about his mother and the difficulties she endured to bring him into the world. He learned about more than the end of her life, too. He learned about her favorite foods and the way she laughed and how she spoke three languages. He was regaled with stories of her chestnut hair and how she burned a pot of tea on three separate occasions. 

He tucked such secondhand memories into his heart and held fast to them as his father faded. He swore to his father on the train back to Prince Edward Island, what would be their last journey together as father and son, that he would be the steward of her memory now. 

When they were safely home, his father opened the box that Gilbert never dared inspect and pressed the illusive green ring into his open fist. His brushed his son's face and whispered fiercely, "Bring love back into her home. When you find _the_ girl, the one that upends your entire world, give her this ring. Promise me, son. Bring love back into your mother's home." 

For a time, the love his father spoke about-- the kind that crinkled with laughter and boundless affection-- returned to the Blythe home. It took traveling across the world to find it. During his adventures, the little green ring sat untouched in his closet back in Avonlea. And yet, all the same, love poured back into the Blythe home with the shining arrival of Sebastian and Mary Lacroix.

The wood creaked like giggles, again. Mary never burned a pot of tea, but Bash ruined his fair share of morning oatmeal. It was not love like he knew his father had envisioned in his final days, but it was still good. 

And so, the little ring in his closet remained undisturbed. Forgotten. 

Until Mary laid up in her own fading bed. Gilbert was bone weary of losing the people he loved. It was his curse, it seemed. The grave plot just beyond the Blythe home was proof of it. 

He clutched Mary's hand, then, as she lay dying, and she begged him to marry for love. He heard the ghost of John Blythe in her words. 

_Only for love. _

_Bring love back into your mother's home. _

He did not swear to Mary Lacroix as she lay dying that he would do as she bid. He only blinked in startled disquiet at the way his life was beginning to rhyme. 

Looking at it now, Gilbert thought the ring was rather small to hold such heavy dreams and hopes and memories. The green gemstone was smaller than the head of a nail and did not sparkle like he remembered. It was plain but undeniably beautiful.

His hand shook as he studied it further. The small circular band was the physical manifestation of so much history and unending potential. It signified the love in the Blythe home. The true, beautiful and doomed love that entered the Blythe home. 

Perhaps it was best that he did not love Winnie, he thought, as he turned the ring over and felt the grooves in the gold. It was love that had ruined his home, after all. She would not be subject to the curse of Blythe affection. His father had lost his mother and all his children save Gilbert. Bash had been made an honorary Blythe and lost Mary. Both men had loved their wives with such a passion and steadfast nature, and they subsequently lost them. 

Gilbert was resolved that Winnie would not be subject to such misfortune. The peculiar green ring would not go to his knees-go-weak, the-world-melts-away-whenever-they-entered-the-room sort of love. It would go to practical, lovely and perfectly nice Winifred. 

Indeed, practical was better than passion. 

He thought of Anne. She splashed across the canvas of his mind unbidden and unwanted. Gilbert could see her dancing in front of the crackling fire from the previous night. He could see her unbound hair whipping around her face so that he could only so much as peak a glimpse of her wide smile. She had been as effervescent as the fire, and when she had folded her hand in his, as he helped her down from her Shakespearean perch, he knew she would burn him as much as her glowing fire.

When the world had been handed to him on a platter, the only counsel he wanted was Anne's counsel. She was the first face he thought of then, too; and, like a fool, he found her in the woods of just beyond the testing room in Avonlea.

He did not plan his words. In fact, he did not even intend to attempt to pour his heart out to her-- to gift it to her, if she so desired it-- but when they were finally sitting so close and she was looking at him with such beseeching eyes, Gilbert Blythe felt his heart crack open. Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was the love of his life. 

It was exhilarating. 

It frightened him. 

The women loved wholly by Blythe men died. 

He stumbled over his words, tripped over every sentence and sentiment that spilled from his lips. She waded through his words and asked her gentle question, "What's holding you back?" 

"Just...one thing." 

He cast off the memory like swatting away spider webs. It still stung to think about her rejection. It was incoherent at best, but her _no_ was still plainly _no_. And Gilbert found the grace to be happy she cast him aside.

She was safer not to love him. 

Gilbert Blythe squinted at the green ring that his mother once owned and exhaled. 


End file.
